Bail plea of Chandila, others deferred

A Delhi court on Saturday (June 15) deferred the hearing on the bail pleas of suspended Rajasthan Royal's player Ajit Chandila and five others in the IPL spot-fixing scandal case till June 17. Besides Chandila, Additional Sessions Judge Ajay Kumar Jain also adjourned the hearing on the bail applications of accused bookies Ramesh Vyas, Ashwani Aggarwal, Deepak Kumar, Sunil Bhatia and an ex-Ranji player Baburao Yadav.

"The present bail applications are adjourned for June 17," the court said, while asking the Senior Public Prosecutor (SPP) to remain present on the day.

The court deferred hearing on the applications, after it was informed that the prosecutor was not present on Saturday.

The Delhi Police's Special Cell informed the judge that the SPP appointed for this case will be returning by next week, as he was out of town. Meanwhile, the police have filed its reply to bail plea of Vyas, saying the accused should not be granted relief as he was in direct contact with the underworld and was running the syndicate on their behest in south India.

"Ramesh Vyas, whose arrest in this case had been effected on June 8, and who has been remanded to judicial custody, has disclosed the role played by Ashwani as link between fixers, bookies, hawala operators of India and the syndicate member who are operating from Dubai and Pakistan," the police said.

It further stated that Vyas was controlling the entire South India network and Ashwani was looking north India operations on behalf of Dawood and Chhota Shakeel. The police yesterday in its reply had opposed Chandila's bail plea, saying he was a "key conspirator" in the entire IPL spot fixing case and was acting at the behest of a syndicate run by gangster Dawood Ibrahim.

The Delhi Police on May 16 had arrested three cricketers -- S Sreesanth, Chandila and Ankeet Chavan of Rajasthan Royal's -- on charges of spot-fixing. They had slapped provisions of Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) on Sreesanth, Chandila, Chavan and on 25 others in the case, alleging that they were acting under the command of Dawood and Chhota Shakeel.

The court had granted bail to Sreesanth, Chavan and 19 others due to lack of evidence to be charged under MCOCA.

The police had also opposed the other co-accused bail applications, saying "as per the material on record Bhatia was acting as the henchmen fixer for Ashwani."

They told the court that Bhatia was found fixing players as well as threatening them for failed or undelivered performances. "He was directly in touch with Chandila and, through him with others like Siddharth Trivedi," the police reply stated.

It also said that Bhatia was closely linked with the hawala network of Ashwani as all the payments made by him to Chandila were made using these channels. The police said Yadav had assisted Bhatia in match fixing with Chandila.

"During investigation it was revealed that all activities were on going in an organised manner. The rates of the bets were being fixed from abroad. A large number of persons from India as well abroad were playing the betting which resulted in generation of huge money," the police had said.

"In the light of these, it is submitted that prima facie evidence against all these accused to link them as an abettor, conspirator and facilitator exists on record to link them with the activities of this organised crime syndicate.

"Hence, these accused are not liable to be released on bail especially when the investigation is still going on and their release may hamper the progress of investigation," the police had said.